


Seasick

by LetItRaines



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends To Lovers Again, Lovers to Friends, and
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-07 22:23:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15917469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetItRaines/pseuds/LetItRaines
Summary: Sometimes moving home when your life falls apart isn’t a bad thing. But sometimes moving home does lead to things you never thought were possible. Or so Emma Swan learns.





	1. Chapter One

When she walks up to the house, a two-story white cottage with sea foam green shutters adorning all of the oversized windows, pastel pillows topping the patio furniture adorning the spacious front porch, she can’t quite understand how she ended up here, rolling suitcase trailing behind her and stuffed backpack resting on her shoulders. She lets out a big sigh, one that moves through her entire body, and walks up the steps, hand knocking on the front door before she even gets the chance to talk herself out of it.

 

She’s been doing that for the past few hours, talking herself out of this, stopping the car more times than she can count.

 

She knew what to expect when the door opens, but that doesn’t mean she was in any way prepared to be face to face with her mom again, hopeful green eyes staring into Emma’s matching sad ones, the contrast not lost on her. It’s how it had almost always been.

 

“Hi,” Emma squeaks out, raising her free hand to give what is probably the most awkward wave in the history of waves and the ocean is literally a mile away from them, not that those kind of waves could be awkward. Or could they? She didn’t know. She was nervous, and she was trying to think of anything other than having to explain to her parents why she was back home after being away for eight years, communication among the three of them seriously lacking – and not for a lack of trying from her parents.

 

“Oh Emma,” her mom sighs, immediately pulling Emma into her arms, squeezing so tightly that Emma drops her suitcase, the weight of it causing a loud thump when it crashes onto the hardwood of the front porch. They stay like that for a few moments, Emma letting out a sigh of both relief and guilt into her mother’s hair.

 

“Mary Margaret, who was at the – ” David questions as he walks to the entryway of the home, halting in his tracks when he sees his wife hugging his daughter. Emma pulls back from her mom, looking at her dad unsure if she would get the same kind reaction from him, but then he is there, cradling the back of her head like he always did when she was younger, breath hitching in the back of her throat as she held in a sob, overwhelmed by this reunion and just…everything.

 

“Emma, honey,” David begins, pulling back from her and resting his hands on her shoulders, looking over her like he was trying to see if there were any obvious damages – there weren’t, those were all on the inside, “what are you doing here? Are you okay?”

 

And that’s when the dam breaks. The dam she has been building for years, a force she thought was nearly invincible with the stones she used to construct it. But that was the first time anyone had asked her if she was okay in _years,_ and she knew that was all her fault. She had removed herself from anyone who actually cared about her and surrounded herself with people who didn’t. It was the mistake of a young girl trying to get out of the small town that she thought suffocated her as a teenager, when in reality it was the only place that’s ever felt like home, even if it hasn’t been her home in eight years, since she was eighteen years old and left to follow a guy of all things. Like every clichéd movie warns you about, but you do it anyway because you think that you’ll be the one who’s different.

 

You’re not.

 

Her parents usher her inside. The house’s layout is the same, still open floor plans and high ceilings, clean lines and cream walls, but when she sits down on the couch, heavy backpack still on her shoulders, she realizes that the couch is different. All of the furniture is different. The basic structure is the same, but everything on the inside is different, probably a little bit like her.

 

She’s comparing herself to furniture, so this definitely might be a new low.

 

She doesn’t want to tell them, doesn’t want to talk about her failures, but these are her parents who love her despite every failure, even the ones they don’t know about yet, and despite the fact that she’s distanced herself from them. They love her, even if she doesn’t deserve it.

 

So shrugging the straps of her backpack off her shoulders, she spins the tale of what’s been happening for the past eight years and what’s lead her to return back to their front door and back to the coastal town of Seaside.

 

They know the beginning, how as soon as she graduated from high school, she left for Boston with her boyfriend Neal, a promise of a better life as he went to go work for his father’s real estate company and she went to work as a temp at various businesses in the city, never finding anything that fulfilled her. She thought that love would give her that sense of fullness, but it never did. And that’s probably because it wasn’t actually love, just something masquerading around with a pretty face but an ugly interior.

 

After living in Boston for five years, she’d been working in customer relations at a Nordstrom. The people she helped were people who could spend her weekly pay on a pair of heels and not bat an eyelash, and while overall it wasn’t bad, she was tired of spending her days inside four walls with no windows. She had left home because she felt too constrained, but this, this was suffocating. She couldn’t quit. She needed the money, but she could say she had a dentist appointment and take a half day. So she did.

 

It was like playing hooky from high school but with none of the thrill. All she wanted to do was go home to her (their) apartment and curl up in her favorite spot on the couch to watch Netflix. Except when she got home, opening the door expecting no one to be there, there was someone there. Two someones, actually. Her boyfriend and someone who was very obviously not her having sex on the couch she had been dreaming of curling up on. Now all she wanted to do was burn it. And very possibly the people on it.

 

There was no screaming. There was no yelling. She just slammed the door, alerting them of her presence, and Neal didn’t even try to defend himself, not that there was any way of convincing her that he wasn’t cheating on her when he was still fucking inside the girl. She had never been so relieved that she hadn’t touched him in months.

 

Love masquerading as something else, indeed.

 

She just went to the bedroom and pulled a suitcase out of the closet, throwing everything she owned into it. When she was finished, and everything she owned could fit into that suitcase and another small overnight bag, she realized that the life she had been living was no life at all.

 

In an almost mechanical motion, she grabbed her bags and walked out the door, muttering a _don’t even try to call me_ under her breath and slamming the door back into the door frame, causing it to tremble and shake like she so wanted to.

 

But she didn’t, even when she realized she had nowhere to go.

 

She thought about coming home, to her parents, but she refused to be someone who fell apart and ran home to her parents. She refused to be someone who allowed an asshole of a boyfriend who would cheat on her and not even bother apologizing – not that an apology would be worth anything – to control anymore of her life. So she stuck around Boston, quitting her job and finding another temporary one, at least this time with windows.

 

So she soldiered on for three years, but then on the day of her twenty-sixth birthday, when she woke up in her crappy one-bedroom apartment, entirely alone, she realized she couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t be alone anymore. And she wasn’t talking about relationship-wise. She didn’t care for those anymore. She was talking about her family. The love and the warmth and the support that a family could provide. The love that she ran away from.

 

So when her phone buzzed, a simple _happy birthday_ text from her father, she made a decision, packing her bags – it still was just the two – and loading up into her old, yellow Volkswagen bug, beginning the drive to Florida and not stopping until she got there.

 

Until she got _here_.

 

By the time she finishes talking, it’s two in the morning, and as she sees her father try to stifle a yawn, she realizes that the two of them have work in the morning. It’s a Wednesday – Thursday now – and obviously their lives don’t just stop because she’s there.

 

“You guys should go to bed,” she tells them, standing from her spot on the couch and stretching her arms above her head, cool air hitting her stomach when her sweater lifts with her stretch. “Is it…is it okay if I stay in my old room?”

 

“Of course,” Mary Margaret tells her, pulling her in for another hug, “you can stay for as long as you want, as long as you need. We’ve missed you so much.”

 

So she does stay. She makes her way to her old room that night, and it looks exactly the same, like a museum of her teenage years. Everything else in the house has changed, but this has stayed the same. It’s weird, and honestly a little creepy, but when she crawls into bed, _her_ bed, still clad in the clothes she drove in, and pulls that lavender comforter over her body, she doesn’t feel quite as alone as she felt at this time yesterday. As she’s felt for eight years. It almost feels like home.

 

She gets into a bit of a routine living at her childhood home with her parents again. It’s jarring at first to stumble downstairs into the kitchen to have her mom and dad sitting at the table reading the paper and drinking coffee. But they don’t seem to mind, her mother just sliding her a cup of coffee when she sits down at the table with her pop tarts – _they still buy her pop tarts_. Like clockwork, her dad leaves to go to the police station at a quarter past seven, kissing Mary Margaret on the lips and Emma on the crown of her head as he walks past them and out the door. She finishes her breakfast with her mother, and then, also like clockwork, her mother walks out the door with a smile on her face and an encouraging word on her tongue at a quarter until eight on her way to educate the young minds of Seaside.

 

It’s so much like when she was a kid that it’s like she’s experiencing déjà vu. Except she doesn’t get up and go to school with her mother. She lounges around the house during the morning, sometimes going for a run if she’s feeling particularly inspired, and then spending the afternoon at the beach. It may be October, but it still averages over eighty degrees here and she could use a tan.

 

It goes on like this for a week, a routine that feels familiar, and while it was enjoyable, Emma already feels restless. So a week and two days after marching back into her hometown and her old life, she goes in search for a job. She doesn’t have anything past a high school diploma and while she’s got eight years of experience working in office administration, she would rather go swimming with the sharks than work in an office building again. After hours of searching in the shops downtown by the beach, she feels like she’s never going to find something that’s not answering phones and filing paperwork. But as she’s passing the Shrimp Shack, a Seaside institution, she see’s a _we’re hiring_ sign in the window. It’s not ideal, but she’s just looking for something new and something different, it doesn’t have to be the dream job. Emma lets out a sigh, so much like the one before she knocked on her parents’ door, and walks in the spacious, nautically-themed restaurant. Thirty minutes later, she walks out with a job as a waitress and five brightly colored t-shirts that are supposed to be her uniform to go along with shorts in the summer and jeans in the winter.

 

Time seems to fly by, even if it isn’t tourist season, and Emma officially gets used to being home. It’s nice. It’s actually better than nice. She never thought that being twenty-six and moving back in with your parents could be a good thing, but it is. She’s closer to them than she ever was when she was younger, and they easily become her best friends. It’s nothing less than a surprising turn of events for her, but she discovers that even though you think you know everything when you’re a teenager, you don’t. Your parents are more often than not right.

 

Working at the restaurant is calm until spring rolls in and the spring breakers follow. Seaside is home to more upscale tourists, but that doesn’t mean the young people who vacation here are any less rowdy – _did she really just use the word rowdy to describe people five years her junior_ – or any less interested in coming to one of the most popular restaurants in town that lets you sit right out on the beach.

 

But she survives those weeks, coming home smelling more like seafood and salt than anything else, sand filling the bottoms of her shoes, and before she knows it, spring has blossomed into summer and tourist season is as hot as the sun beating down on her back every day.

 

On the first day in June she’s working the lunch shift and goes to one of the tables in her section. She’s got the deck today, and she’s glad she’ll have the sounds of the ocean as her background noise rather than the sounds of plates crashing into the sink or voices reverberating off the walls on the inside portion of the restaurant.

 

She sees one her regulars, an Irish man named Liam who works as an accountant just down the road. He comes in three to five days a week for lunch, usually alone, though he always seems to find someone he knows halfway through his meal, but today he’s sitting with someone at the beginning.

 

And that someone is…well, he’s hot. Like, really hot. He’s all tanned skin and long, lean lines under the fitted blue t-shirt he has on, the color only bringing out the blue in his eyes. And it’s when she looks at his eyes that she makes the connection. This man has to be related to Liam. She would bet her paycheck on it.

 

After she stops being creepy – she was staring at them from afar after all – she makes her way over to them, smile tugging at the corner of her lips as she goes to take their orders.

 

“Good afternoon, Liam,” she greets, not even bothering to get out her notepad where she writes down orders. He gets the same thing every time – shrimp and grits with an iced water with lemon – so all she has to remember is mystery man’s order. “How are you?”

 

“Just wonderful, lass,” Liam beams at her, cheery as always, “I’d like to introduce you to my brother, Killian.”

 

Ah, so she was right. It is a relative. A brother apparently.

 

When she reaches to take the brother’s hand, Killian apparently, he flashes her a grin, white teeth contrasting against the darkness of his beard, and she feels butterflies fluttering around in her stomach. Which is not a good sign. She doesn’t need to feel butterflies anymore. They can stay caterpillars forever for all she cares.

 

“Emma,” she says as she shakes his hand, smiling right back despite the unwelcome flutters in her stomach. “It’s nice to meet you.”

 

“It’s nice to meet you as well, love.”

 

His voice is much deeper, much smoother than his brother’s, and she already knows that he’s some kind of trouble. What, she doesn’t know, nor does she intend to find out.

 

“Killian is here visiting me,” Liam tells her as he stacks their menus to hand to her even though she hasn’t taken their – Killian’s – orders, “so I’m not eating alone today. But I will have the usual, and I’ve convinced my brother here to try the same.”

 

“Well, that makes my job so much easier,” Emma tells them, reaching to grab the menus from Liam. “I’ll just go put them in and be back with your waters in a few minutes, okay?”

 

The rest of her shift went as it normally does, but she found herself distracted by the brothers, the new one in particular. He was just so attractive, and obviously it had been too long since she had any type of _release_ because she couldn’t stop thinking about him, and he’d said exactly twenty-two words to her today, most of them about his order. When they finally left, leaving Emma a twenty-dollar tip (which, wow), she was grateful. Not just for the money, but for the fact that she could finally focus on her job without the unwelcome distraction.

 

She ends up picking up a dinner shift for one of her coworkers – it’s not like she really had any other plans – and when she gets off at ten, she decides to walk downtown to one of the bars for a drink after what ended up being a long day at work.

 

The streets are crowded, couples milling along the path under the cast of the bulb lights strung up above. It is rather romantic, she thinks, but she’s not really in the mood for romance. She just wants to have a glass of wine or a bottle of beer or a shot of tequila – she’s not picky – and rest her feet.

 

When she comes across Sharky’s – this is a tourist town after all – she decides this will work, and heads on in, taking a seat at an empty barstool and ordering a beer. She doesn’t want to even get tipsy. She just wants to nurse her drink and not think for a little while.

 

“Fancy seeing you here, love,” a smooth Irish accent says beside her, causing her to turn her head to her right to look at him. Yep, still hot.

 

She takes another sip of her beer, a long, slow gulp to try to give her more time to think of something to say. It doesn’t help.

 

“Well, I don’t spend all of my time serving seafood on the seashore.”

 

Oh God, she really just said that, didn’t she?

 

Killian doesn’t seem to mind, tilting his head back in laughter, messy hair moving with the motion, and he’s got to be pretty weird to think that she’s funny. Or trying to get into her pants. That’s the most likely option.

 

“I think all of the salt air has gone to your head,” he tells her, bright smile on his face before he takes a sip of what she thinks is rum. “You seem to speak in beach-themed tongue twisters.”

 

“What can I say,” she shrugs, “I like a good tongue twister.”

 

His cheeks flush red when he looks at her, and she finally smiles at him then, proud of herself for being able to make the guy blush. She can already tell that he’s used to being the one in charge, to being the one who flirts. And that’s totally what she’s doing. She’s flirting with him. Happily. So maybe that him getting into her pants thing wouldn’t be that bad.

 

They spend the next hour and a half talking between their sips of alcohol. Liam’s got a date tonight, and Killian decided to come out to explore the town instead of sitting at the house alone. He’s apparently a boat salesman in Maine, something he stumbled into after he got out of the Navy a few years ago. He hasn’t seen his brother since Christmas and had some time off, deciding the come and visit him, only for _the wanker to leave him for a date_. Killian’s words not hers.

 

She learns that he’s a big fan of the ocean, but he’s not too big of a fan of how hot it is here in Florida. He spends a lot of his spare time reading, anything from classics to supernatural murder mysteries, and he hasn’t had cable hooked up on his television for years, having cancelled it to save money when he was between jobs and then never having turned it back on. He goes for runs in the morning much like she does, but he hates it with every fiber in his being and believes the whole runner’s high thing is a lie.

 

He’s funny, and she finds herself liking him. But she also knows that he’s just here on vacation to visit his brother. He’s not sticking around. So if her hand finds its way onto his thigh in the middle of the conversation, slowly inching its way up as the night goes on, or if his leg tangles with hers underneath the bar, it’s not a big deal. It’s just two ships passing in the night. And if she finds herself following him home – to Liam’s home, apparently, though Killian promises that Liam won’t actually be there – then that’s nothing to bat an eyelash at. And if she finds herself stripped of her clothes, writhing below him as he pumps himself into her at a ferocious pace, his length dragging against her in a way that starts a fire she hasn’t felt in, well, maybe ever, then that’s not a big deal either. And it’s especially not a big deal when they’re finished, her hair covered in sweat, and she gets dressed and walks out the door, despite Killian telling her _you can stay, Emma_.

 

It’s not until she wakes up the next morning, her body sore in places it hasn’t been sore in a long time, that she realizes she may not have to see Killian again, but she does have to see his brother. So it’s a slight flaw in her plan, but what’s done is done.

 

The next few days go on as normal, and while she sees Liam at the restaurant, he’s always alone, no sign of Killian anywhere. He doesn’t mention him either, so she figures that he must have gone home. Probably had to go back to work or something.

 

On Saturday she has a day off because of the shift she traded earlier this week, and she decides to head to beach, tie dye bikini on underneath her white cover-up. It’s as she’s spreading her towel out onto a spot on the sand that she spots Killian, lounging in one of the striped pastel beach chairs that you can rent for a couple of bucks a day. She thinks that maybe he won’t see her, that she can pick up and move her towel and escape unnoticed, but then he looks up and is staring right at her, blue eyes very obviously checking her out in her bikini. She feels uncomfortably naked under her gaze, which is ridiculous because she’s already been naked in front of him.

 

_Oh fuck._

 

Apparently her deer-in-the-headlight eyes don’t scare him off because he puts his book down – of course he’s reading a book – and makes his way over to her, bright smile on his face. She just stands there like some sort of frozen idiot.

 

“Hello, love,” he greets, scratching behind is ear, and wow is he even more attractive shirtless in the sunlight than he is in the dark. Nope, gotta push those thoughts down because she can not be thinking about that when she’s just run into her one-night stand in the broad daylight.

 

“Uhh, I – hi,” she mutters, voice sheepish as she tries to figure a way out of this with her dignity intact, “I thought you went home.”

 

It’s like a light bulb goes off in his head, and she knows the minute he’s worked through the fact that she was expecting to never see him again. His smile falters, just the slightest bit, and it almost makes her feel bad that it’s because of her.

 

“I’m staying here for the summer months. My company has an office here that they’ve just opened, and I can work out of it if I need to. I don’t work every day, you see. I’ve got open hours.”

 

“But you said you were just here visiting your brother.” She doesn’t mean for the words to sound harsh, but they do, and she’s surprised Killian doesn’t physically recoil from her.

 

“Aye,” he confirms, nodding his head, “I am. I intend to return home when the summer is over, but I saw an opportunity to see him for more than just a few days here and there and I couldn’t pass it up.”

 

She doesn’t say anything back. She’s not the best with words, even if she did talk to him the other night. _And not talk to him_. He seems to get the hint, though.

 

“Look, Emma,” he starts, going to scratch behind his ear again, obviously a nervous tick of his, “I understand that you intended the two of us to be just a one-time thing. You don’t have to say it. You’re kind of an open book, you see? And I just wanted to tell you that I don’t expect anything more. But if you’re willing, I would like to be friends.”

 

She doesn’t really know what to say. She’s never run into someone she slept with and then planned on never seeing again. But here this guy is, staring down at her with some kind of hopeful smile on his face because he wants to be _friends_. And she just knows it isn’t some kind of play. He actually means it.

 

Well, what the hell?

 

“That sounds nice, Killian,” she admits, giving him a hesitant smile of her own.

 

“Yeah?” he asks, and he just looks so damn hopeful, like he really does want to be her friend even though he slept with her in what, frankly, was some very dirty sex. But yeah, sure, the two of them can be friends. That’s not weird at all.

 

“Would you like to go get something to eat? Not, as like a date or anything because we’re not doing that. But maybe an ice cream?”

 

She just sighs, continuing on with the _what the hell attitude_ and tells him sure, they can go to Frost Bites, a little ice cream shop that basically operates out of a van without wheels a few hundred feet away from the beach.

 

He doesn’t talk on their walk there and neither does she, but after she orders a cone of mango ice cream (don’t judge, it’s good) and he orders a cone of pistachio ice cream (do judge, it’s not good), they fall into conversation much like they did the other night, only without the buzz of alcohol or the anticipation of sex. Instead it’s calm and relaxing, and she almost forgets that she slept with him until he runs his tongue across his bottom lip to wipe off some remaining ice cream and she has some _very specific_ memories about that tongue doing other things.

 

Despite that slip up and the blush she knows is covering her chest, she thinks that this weird friend thing they’ve got going on may be able to work. Or she’ll just avoid him at all costs until he goes back to Maine. She hasn’t decided yet.

 

It’s just as she’s letting her guard down, slipping into a sense of comfort she knows she shouldn’t be slipping into, that she sees her parents walking toward her. And much like earlier on the beach with Killian, they make eye contact before she can run.

 

Damn.

 

“Emma,” Mary Margaret grins, leaning down to hug her daughter in greeting as her dad just nods his head at her, “funny running into you here.”

 

_That seems to be happening a lot._

David, being the overprotective dad he is, immediately brings up Killian’s presence. “Who’s your friend, Emma?”

 

_There’s that word friend again._

 

“Killian Jones,” he says, shaking both of her parents’ hands before she can even introduce him. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

 

“It’s nice to meet you as well, Mr. Jones. I’m David Nolan. This is my wife Mary Margaret.” David acknowledges, though he doesn’t look quite as happy to be meeting Killian as Mary Margaret does. “How do you know Emma?”

 

Emma flashes him a glare to tell him that he better not dare say anything inappropriate, and he just winks at her. The man fucking winks at her.

 

“I believe you know my brother, Liam Jones?” Her parents both nod their heads in answer, understanding lighting up on their faces. “Well, he frequents Emma’s place of work, and took me there on my first day in town. Emma here was our waitress, and I guess her customer service skills extend beyond the workplace because she offered to show me around a little bit when I ran into her on the beach this afternoon.”

 

Okay, so not exactly what happened, but none of it was technically a lie. Whatever, he can charm her parents all he wants. Her mom may go for it, but her dad probably won’t. And Emma’s _definitely not_ going to fall for his charms any more than she already has.

 

In the end, he ends up charming all of them. Her parents buy themselves ice cream and decide to sit down at the table with Emma and Killian, the smell of salt water and sunscreen permeating through the air as Killian regales them with tales of his home in Maine and his home before that in Ireland. David officially falls for him when he finds out that Killian was a member of the Navy because apparently being a member of the Navy means you automatically become friends with police officers everywhere you go.

 

Her mother tells Killian about how when Emma was a toddler and got to eat something like ice cream, she’d have to eat it without a shirt on because she was just so messy. _Still is_ , her father so helpfully adds. And Killian just raises a singular eyebrow, goofy smile on his face as he looks at her, tapping a spot on his chin to indicate that, sure enough, she has some ice cream on her face. Her entire body has to be as red as the lobster she serves at work, and it’s not from the sun.

 

After thoroughly embarrassing her, her parents decide to leave, and she tells them that she’ll be right behind them, not wanting to have to suffer through this anymore. Killian’s still just smiling at her, and she wants to go stick her head in the sand of the beach.

 

“Your parents are a delight,” he tells her as he rises from his seat to stand in front of her.

 

“My parents don’t understand what’s appropriate to share and what isn’t.” She knows she’s pouting, and she might as well stomp her feet and throw a temper tantrum because she feels like the petulant child her parents just told stories about.

 

“They just love you, Emma. You can ask Liam to tell you embarrassing stories about me if you want. I don’t mind.”

 

“You’re just full of confidence, aren’t you?” She asks as she scuffs her sandal against the pavement, not looking at him.

 

“It helps when you’re a dashing fellow like meself.”

 

“You’re ridiculous.”

 

“Aye, but I’m your friend now.”

 

Two hours, and she’s seriously already regretting that one. She should have trusted her gut instinct and run far, far away. But it’s fine. It’s whatever. She likely will only run into him occasionally. It’s not like she’s going to see him every day.

 

That last statement ends up being one of the biggest lies she’s ever told, because she does end up seeing him every day. And it’s not like he’s actively seeking her out or she’s actively seeking him out. Okay, he does show up to the Shrimp Shack, but it’s always with Liam and it is only once or twice a week. But she sees him when she goes to the grocery store on her walk home from work. She sees him on the beach every time she goes. She even runs into him when she goes shopping for a birthday present for her dad.

 

One morning when she’s on mile two of her run, she very literally runs into him as he’s running in the opposite direction toward her, sweaty bodies colliding in a hard thud that has them both landing on the hard pavement, her body cushioning his fall.

 

“Normally, I prefer to do more enjoyable activities with a woman on her back.”

 

He obviously says it without thinking through his words, the innuendo just naturally coming to him. She can feel every inch of the hard lines of his body against hers, and it’s that more than the words he spoke that remind her that they already have done those more enjoyable activities with Emma on her back.

 

He seems to finally realize what he’s said, scrambling off of her and apologizing for running into her and then crushing her, and he shouldn’t have been looking at his phone to change his music.

 

They end up completing their runs together, more at a leisurely jog than anything after the roughness of the fall and the marks that are sure to show up on Emma’s back tomorrow. When they reach her house, he jokes and asks _same time tomorrow_? She surprises both Killian and herself by seriously saying _see you then_.

 

Every morning he picks her up at her house to go for a run at six in the morning. Usually she wouldn’t get up that early, but as it turns out, he does actually work, and he likes to get his exercise done before the heat gets to be too much. Some days they run at such a fast pace that it punishes their limbs, sweat dripping down their bodies as they rest with their hands on their knees trying to catch their breaths. Other days it’s a more leisurely jog, which usually just results in them walking with all of the elderly women in the neighborhood.

 

It’s on these walks that Emma learns a little bit more about her new friend, Killian Jones. He’s thirty-two to her twenty-six. He’s never been married, but he did have a long-term girlfriend who ended up cheating on him with their neighbor. Emma dissolves into a fit of hysterical giggles when he admits that, and she was sure he was going to take off running until she explained that was exactly what happened with her. He doesn’t look at her with pity like everyone else does, and she knows it’s because he actually understands what it’s like to have that trust betrayed, to struggle with trusting someone else again. She just gives him a high five, and while it’s not the most appropriate reaction to this new piece of information, she thinks that it works for them.

 

On a less serious note, she learns that he’s really gotten into having cable again while living with Liam. He doesn’t even hesitate to admit that the two of them have been watching the Bachelor when it comes on, and after Emma much more shamefully admitting that she watches it too, he invites her over to watch with the two of them as long as she’s not working the dinner shift those days. And if she makes an effort to work the earlier shifts, no one has to know but her.

 

It becomes kind of a thing, the three of them watching television together, and it doesn’t stop at the Bachelor. It’s just whatever comes on when she goes over there, and she’s over there most nights and the occasional morning when she falls asleep on the couch watching TV, Killian’s arm wrapped around her shoulder.

 

It’s on a night like one of those where Killian tells she and Liam that he has access to one of the boats he’s trying to sell this weekend, if they’d like to go out on the water. Emma readily agrees, excitement bubbling up in her stomach, and she’s no longer surprised that she and Killian are actually friends. She’s just glad that they are.

 

So on Saturday afternoon, she shows up at the docks with her hair in braids to keep it from tangling clad in a black bikini and ripped jean shorts, plain gray tank top covering it all. Killian and Liam are already there, milling around on the boat, seemingly getting things ready for their day out on the water.

 

“Ahoy maties,” she greets and no part of her is ashamed by the pun.

 

Killian pops his head up from where he was shuffling around in a cooler, and he absolutely beams at her. “Ahoy, love,” he says back, moving toward her and offering his hand. “Would you like to come aboard, milady?”

 

“I didn’t walk all this way for nothing.”

 

He laughs at her, grabbing her hand, warm skin sending tingles up her arm, and helps her across the threshold. Despite living in a beach town growing up, she’s never been on a boat before.

 

“This is quite the vessel you captain, Jones.”

 

It’s small, but it’s nice, clean lines throughout, benches covered with cushions in the exposed part while the wheel is covered by a roof and windows to protect the driver from the ocean spray. Since Killian is the only one with a boating license and this is technically his boat for the day, he drives them out until they reach a calm portion of the ocean and then turns the motor off, coming to join Emma and Liam in their sunbathing.

 

It’s relaxing in every way that it should be, and she knows she’s going to get rid of all of her tan lines by the end of the day. The rockiness of the waves makes her a bit queasy, but she figures that’s just because it’s her first time out on the ocean like this. She knows that her mom gets seasick as well, so it’s probably just hereditary.

 

Killian, though, he’s in his element. He looks like he belongs out here as he stands at the back of the boat in just his swim trunks, tan skin and chest hair on display as he looks out onto the ocean. They’re just friends, and she’s fine with that – _most of the time_ – but it doesn’t mean she can’t think he’s attractive or remember what that chest hair felt like rubbing against her breasts.

 

They’ve got music on the radio, some country station that’s the only thing that gets reception out here, and Liam pulls her up to dance, spinning her around in circles and she laughs at how ridiculous they must look. But then he’s spinning her right into Killian’s arms and the fast song transitions into something slower, more melodic, and the two of them gently sway against each other to go along with the sway of the boat, her head resting on his chest as he encircles her with his arms.

 

When the music finishes, Killian is staring at her, looking at her so intently that she’s positive he’s going to try to kiss her. She wants him to kiss her. But then at the last moment, the look in his eyes change, playful light bouncing across them. She doesn’t know what’s coming, but when his arms move from her waist to just below her ass, she realizes what’s about to happen, and there’s absolutely no way for her to stop it.

 

“Killian,” she warns, already being tossed over his shoulder like she weighs nothing, his grip on her thighs tightening. “I swear to God if you throw me in the fucking ocean I will murder you.”

 

He doesn’t respond, just carries her over to the edge of the boat, as she half-heartedly tries to escape from his grasp. When she pinches his side in retaliation, he gives her ass a playful smack, laughing at the gasp that she lets out.

 

And then her body is in motion, propelling in the air and then into the cool water, salt getting caught in her mouth at the shock of impact. She wasn’t kidding earlier. She’s going to kill Killian. When she swims back up to the surface, head finally popping out of the water, Killian is sitting at the edge of the boat, feet dangling in the water and stupid smirk on his face.

 

“You still plan to murder me, lass?”

 

She doesn’t respond quite yet, just swimming up to him and running her hand up his leg and to his inner thigh, something she knows drives him crazy. It doesn’t matter if it’s playing dirty. He threw her into the fucking ocean.

 

His breath hitches, just as she intended, and while he’s distracted from her touch, she nods at Liam behind Killian and has him push Killian in the water while she pulls on Killian’s ankle with her free hand. He goes tumbling into the water, just missing her with his impact, and when he emerges, he doesn’t look angry. He looks impressed. And amused. And none of that was her intention.

 

“You’ve bested me, love,” he chuckles, swimming up beside her and helping her back up onto the boat. “And I probably rightfully deserved it.”

 

“Oh, you did,” Emma confirms, pulling him up now that she’s safely back on the boat. “You turned what was a nice afternoon into just a horrible time.”

 

“You don’t mean that.”

 

She doesn’t.

 

“That was so much fun,” she tells Killian later when they’re back at Liam’s house watching a movie on Netflix. “Thank you for taking me to do that.”

 

“It was fun for me, too,” Killian tells her, pulling her closer to him and placing a kiss at the top of her head.

 

She doesn’t know why and she doesn’t know how, but somehow Killian Jones has become her best friend in the past month and a half, and she almost forgets that he’s leaving when the summer is over. But today has been perfect, being thrown into the ocean and all, and she’s not going to let that thought ruin it. She’s just going to worry about it on another day.

 

When she wakes up, she’s in a bed. And if her memory serves right, it’s Killian’s bed in Liam’s guest room. She’s alone though, but she can see Killian sleeping on the couch that’s up against the bedroom wall. She’d have more time to think about how he must have literally carried her to bed but didn’t climb into bed with her if a wave of nausea so strong wasn’t coursing through her body at such an intensity that she doesn’t think she’s going to make it to the bathroom.

 

And she doesn’t, only making it to the small trash can in the corner of the room before she empties what has to be everything she’s ever eaten into the can as she kneels on the floor, hardwood rough against her knees.

 

“Shhhh, it’s okay,” she hears Killian whisper soothingly from behind her as he rubs her back, and when did he get here? “Do you think you can make it to the bathroom now, darling?”

 

She doesn’t speak, doesn’t want to risk opening her mouth and more vomit coming out, just nods her head up and down as Killian helps her stand, guiding her across the hall and into the bathroom, propping her up next to the toilet.

 

He leaves after he sets her down, and at first she thinks that it’s because he doesn’t want to help her – it’s not his job to help her with whatever food poisoning she’s obviously come down with – but he’s apparently just gone to clean up his room and come back with a change of clothes for her, one of his t-shirts and some pajama pants, and a glass of water for her to rinse her mouth out. She thinks she’s finished, but then another bout of nausea hits her, and she retching over the toilet until she begins to dry heave.

 

Her limbs begin to shake in the way that they do when there’s no nutrients left in your body, and she can’t even stand without Killian’s help. He has to help her change clothes, and if she wasn’t too busy focusing on how fucking awful she feels, she would be mortified by the fact that she couldn’t even change her own clothes. After cleaning herself up as best she can, Killian helps to guide her back to his room. This time, though, he gets into the bed with her and lets her curl up into his chest as he runs his hands through her ponytail, playing with the ends of it, and lulls her back into sleep, whispering little nothings into her hair.

 

When she wakes up, there’s a glass of water and some ibuprofen on the bedside table next to her. The sun is already shining through the blinds, making her squint at the brightness of it, and she thinks it must be at least nine in the morning. When she checks her phone, it’s one thirty in the afternoon, and _oh my god she was working the lunch shift today_. She’s going to get fucking fired.

 

She scrambles out of the bed, throwing the covers to the side, and tripping over Killian’s pajama pants as they trail on the ground under her feet. She’s going to be late no matter what, she’s already over two hours late, but that doesn’t stop the rush she’s in as she shucks off the pajama pants and pulls on her shorts from yesterday. It’s as she’s putting them while hopping down the hallway that yet another wave a nausea hits her and suddenly she remembers that she’s sick, running to the bathroom as quickly as she can.

 

Nothing has made her feel this bad in a long time, probably since the day she found out her last relationship was a lie, and she wants nothing more than to just get in that shower and let ice cold water beat down on her sun-kissed skin. So once she empties her body again, she’s not sure how there was anything left there to begin with, she turns the faucet on and strips down to nothing, stepping in and letting the chilled water bite at her skin until she can’t take it anymore.

 

When she steps out of the shower, she can’t find a towel. Why are there no towels in this damn bathroom? Her body is shivering, and she doesn’t think it’ll ever stop, so she does what she can and throws on the t-shirt she was wearing and walks out into the hallway.

 

“Killian,” she yells, but it comes out more like a hoarse croak, her lack of speaking and her excess of dry heaving catching up to her. “Killian,” she tries again, this time a little louder, and that seems to do the trick, the sound of his footsteps pounding up the stairs reaching her before he does.

 

“Bloody hell, Emma.” He’s walking toward her with such purpose in his eyes that she doesn’t know what to do with herself but stand there, “what are you doing?”

 

“There’s no towels.”

 

“I’m doing laundry,” he tells her, already taking her by the shoulders and moving her back to his room, sitting her down on his bed as he wraps a throw blanket around her. “You need to dry off and warm up.”

 

“There’s no towels,” she repeats because obviously if there were towels she wouldn’t be soaking wet, water dripping from the tips of her hair down her back.

 

“I know that,” Killian sighs, grabbing some more pajamas out of his closet and bringing them over to her, “but your hair is causing the shirt you have on to soak through, and you’re already sick so you don’t need to be in cold, wet clothes.”

 

“I’m not sick.”

 

“Did you or did you not throw up _again_ right before you just got in the shower?”

 

She knows he already knows the answer to that, and she hates him right now for acting like she’s incapable of taking care of herself. “You’re not my fucking keeper, Killian. I can take care of myself.”

 

Killian takes a deep breath in and holds it, looking up at the ceiling and running his hand over his beard like he’s trying to hold in the words he wants to say. When he lets out the breath, he speaks. “I realize that I’m not your keeper, but I’d like to think that I’m your friend. And friends help friends when they’re sick. I’d like to help you.”

 

She doesn’t acknowledge him, just slips off the wet t-shirt and slips on the new dry clothes. If Killian cares that he just saw her naked while she was changing, he doesn’t say a thing.

 

“Did you take the ibuprofen?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Don’t get pissed, but I texted Ashley and asked her to take your shift for you.”

 

“Why the hell would you do that?”

 

He doesn’t bother with a verbal response, just levels her with a stare and raises a singular eyebrow. She just huffs, crossing her arms over her chest like the moody teenager she seems to be emulating today.

 

He crosses his arms right back because if there’s anybody to match Emma’s stubbornness, it’s Killian.

 

“Do you want me to take you home or do you want to come downstairs with me and watch some television while I do some work on my laptop?”

 

“Come downstairs with you.”

 

“Then come on, love.”

 

He leads her downstairs, settling her on the couch and covering her with a blanket before sitting down in an armchair and pulling out his laptop to answer some work emails. She finds the true crime channel, a guilty pleasure of hers, and watches it for the rest of the afternoon. When six o’clock rolls around and Liam comes home from his day with dinner, Emma doesn’t want any. She knows that she needs to eat, but she doesn’t think she can stomach anything.

 

Killian takes her home after he eats and walks her in the house like her dad isn’t going to be sitting in the living room glaring at her for not coming home like he’s done every time she’s spent the night away since moving home. It makes her realize she should probably get her own place, but it’s not like she can afford any of the real estate here.

 

Killian relays how she got slightly sea sick yesterday when they were out on the boat and then how she proceeded to throw up a few times throughout the night, not eating anything but a few saltines. And at that, he leaves her be with her parents, squeezing her bicep and telling her to text him later if she needs anything.

 

Her mother worries over her in a way that only mothers can, continuously asking if she’s okay and running her hands over different sections of Emma’s face to see if she has a fever. She doesn’t, but that doesn’t keep Mary Margaret from continuously checking.

 

When Emma heads to bed later, slipping out of Killian’s pajama pants but keeping on the shirt, she feels much better than she has all day, even working up a bit of an appetite. And when she wakes up the next morning, she feels fine. Tired, but fine. It must have just been one of those weird bugs.

 

Except, when she returns to work two days later (her boss didn’t let her come back until she was sure she was better) the smell of the seafood has her insides rolling, and she only makes it through an hour before she has to leave, walking out onto the beach to try to get some fresh air. That’s where she finds Killian reading one of those omnipresent books he always has by his side, and that’s when it hits her.

 

She’s been more tired lately. Her boobs have hurt. The smell of seafood bothers her for the first time in her life. And then the kicker, she’s been throwing up or nauseated for the past few days.

 

“Holy fuck,” she whispers, sitting down on the sand right where she was standing, and she’s so lost in her own thoughts that she doesn’t even see Killian when he’s squatting down in front of her.

 

“Emma, what are you doing?”

 

His eyes look as blue as the ocean, bluer even, and full of concern for her. He cares about her, and they’re friends. They’re friends, and she’s about 80% sure that she’s pregnant…with his baby.

 

Oh God, she’s pregnant.

 

Probably.

 

She must not have answered him because he’s placing his hands underneath her armpits and pulling her up off the ground. “Emma, I need you to tell me you’re okay.”

 

“I’m okay.” She says it, but she doesn’t mean it. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know what to tell him. Does she tell him? Of course she tells him.

 

She can’t keep something like this from him, even if she wants to.

 

“Killian?” she questions, finding the courage to look him in the eye. He just nods, encouraging her to continue. “I need you to take me to the CVS outside of town.”

 

He doesn’t question it, just places his hand on the small of her back and guides her back to her car a few blocks away. She doesn’t drive, instead letting him, and when they pull up to the CVS twenty minutes later, he puts the car in park and looks over to her.

 

“What do you need me to go buy for you, love?”

 

“A pregnancy test.”


	2. Chapter Two

“You – you’re pregnant?” Killian stutters, voice going up in pitch in the middle of the word pregnant like it’s a foreign language to him.

 

It’s kind of a foreign language to her.

 

“Well I don’t know, Killian,” she bites out even if he doesn’t deserve her callousness. She hasn’t had a lot of time to process this, but she’s had a little bit more time than him. “That’s what the test is for.”

 

He doesn’t say anything else, just gets out of the car with this glazed over look in his eyes and walks into the store like he’s moving on auto-pilot. Emma handled that with all of the grace someone should when telling the father of their _potential_ baby that they’re going to be a _potential_ dad.

 

Of course, there is the possibility that he doesn’t realize it may be his baby. Obviously he knows that they slept together. Neither of them were drunk, having only had a max of two drinks each, so he definitely hasn’t forgotten the fact. But he’s only known her for all of two months, and she did sleep with him on the day she met him. For all he knows she does that all the time, and it could be anybody’s baby.

 

But it’s not. It’s his.

 

 _If_ she actually is pregnant. A part of her is still holding onto the fact that maybe she isn’t while an even tinier part of her that’s starting to get larger every minute she waits for Killian to come back hopes that she is.

 

Killian returns fifteen minute later with a bag bursting with pregnancy tests and what looks like a few bottles of water.

 

“Did you buy the whole aisle?”

 

“I didn’t know which kind was best,” he answers, self-deprecating smile tugging at the corners of his lips even as his eyes dart all over her body like he’s scared to look her in the eyes. She doesn’t blame him. “And I got some water because, you know, you have to pee to use them. I didn’t want you to be lacking anything. And also some kind of chocolate bar that was at the counter. I don’t know why. I just kind of grabbed it.”

 

“That’s very sweet of you,” she tells him, placing her hand on his forearm and squeezing, giving him the best smile she can, even if she’s tight-lipped and doing everything she can not to have a meltdown in the parking lot of a CVS. “Is Liam at work?”

 

Killian tilts his head at her, squinting his eyes in confusion as his right brow rises to the top of his forehead. “Why do you care where Liam is?”

 

“Because I need to take these tests, and I’m not going to do it at my parents’ house. And I don’t really want anyone else to be around when we find out if we’re going to have a baby or not.”

 

Emma knows that logically, Killian pretty much knew he was the hypothetical father. She’s already been through this while waiting on him. He’s a smart guy. He can put together the pieces, but with his eyes blown wide and his breath laboring, she realizes that it didn’t truly hit him until that last sentence.

 

“Okay,” he breathes out as he puts the car in drive, pulling out of the CVS parking lot and driving back to Liam’s house like a man on a mission.

 

They’re silent on the drive, but Killian keeps looking over at her as she drinks one of the water bottles. He’s going to drive off the road if he doesn’t start keeping his focus between the lines, so she just gabs his right hand and holds it against her leg, squeezing every time he looks over to her to try to let him know that everything is going to be fine, even if she’s not sure that’s the truth. Eventually, he’s only doing it every other minute instead of every thirty seconds, and that’s progress, she guesses.

 

When they get to the house, Emma waits for Killian to unlock the front door before she makes her way up the stairs to the guest bathroom knowing that Killian is following right behind her with the plastic bag full of pregnancy tests.

 

“I’m going to go pee on some sticks, and then I’m going to come out into the hallway and wait with you, okay?”

 

“Okay.”

 

Three minutes and fourteen seconds later, with a hell of a lot of telling herself to breathe in between, Killian and Emma are staring at four different pregnancy tests that all read variations of positive or pregnant or have two pink lines. Basically, they’re all screaming _you’re having a baby_ at the two people sitting on the hallway floor of the home that neither of them technically live in.

 

“Well, at least we know the conception date without any question.”

 

Emma looks over at him, and he just shrugs, cheeky smile on his face as he wiggles his eyebrows at her, and she begins to laugh hysterically, giggles running through her body as she leans forward to place her head against her knees. Leave it to Killian to make her laugh when she should be having a panic attack. Maybe she is having one and just doesn’t know it.

 

Better here than the CVS.

 

“What the hell are we supposed to do, Killian?” she finally asks when she’s calmed down from her laughing fit and is able to think a bit more clearly.

 

“Well I supposed we’re going to have a baby.”

 

He says it so simply, like it’s the easiest thing in the entire world, that she almost believes it. But it’s not the easiest thing in the world. It’s one of the most difficult, and it’s not like the two of them are married. Hell, they’re not even together. This is just a mess.

 

“Killian, do you even hear yourself?” She slaps her legs, red marks appearing before quickly fading away, and leans her head back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. Liam needs to touch it up with some paint…is this already that nesting thing that people talk about? “What are we going to do? I’m a waitress at a seafood restaurant who can’t even stomach the smell of seafood. I live with my parents. You live with your brother. Oh God,” she sobs out, hand covering her mouth, “Killian you don’t even _live_ here. You’re going to have to go back to Maine, and I’m going to have to raise the baby by myself. I can’t do this by myself.”

 

Her body starts to shake with her sobs, giant alligator tears streaming down her face as Killian pulls her into his side, running his hand up and down her arm as he whispers soothing words into her hair, placing kisses at her hairline every now and then to punctuate a point.

 

“Emma, love,” he finally says when she’s stopped crying and moved to rest in his bed across the hall, “You’re not going to be by yourself. I’m going to move here. I was thinking about it already, and it’s not like I don’t have an office here. I’ve been working there all summer. So that settles that. I’m not going to leave _you_ or this child.” He’s putting his thumb against her chin, lifting her face to make sure she looks into his eyes. “I need you to understand that.”

 

Emma just moves to rest flat on her back, arm thrown over her eyes wondering how in the world this happened? What’s that saying? Broken condoms, broken dreams.

 

Not that this feels like it’s a broken dream. It’s overwhelming and terrifying and really kind of a messed up situation, but _she’s going to have a baby_. It’s not something she ever really wanted for herself, but she now realizes that may have been a result of who she was with and not wanting to have a baby with him rather than not wanting to have a baby at all.

 

But this is still complicated and messy and she doesn’t know what to do.

 

“Killian,” she finally responds, not bothering to uncover her eyes to look at him, “you have to think these things through. You can’t just make snap decisions. Your life is in Portland. Are you really going to up and move to Florida of all places because your one-night stand ended up pregnant? Aren’t you going to end up resenting me or, God forbid, resenting the baby for taking you away from all of that? From your life?”

 

Before she knows it, her arm is being removed from its place on her face, and all she can see is blue. She hopes the baby has his eyes. And wow, not the time to be thinking that.

 

“First of all,” Killian begins, voice even as he stares down at her from his place sitting next to her at the edge of the bed, “if my entire life was in Portland, why would I have gone away from it for three months?”

 

“To visit your brother?”

 

“Aye,” he confirms, rubbing his thumb against her palm in soothing circles, “but I could have done that for a week. Instead I arranged a way for me to work from here and planned on staying for a quarter of a year. I didn’t have anything left there, but I have a lot here.”

 

“Yeah, your brother and your one-night stand and an unplanned baby.”

 

“Second of all,” he continues, still tracing random patterns against her skin that send tingles through her entire body and how she didn’t notice that her hormones are all fuzzy is beyond her, “you’re not just a one-night stand and you know it. You’re my friend and someone who I deeply care about, so I’m going to need you to stop saying you’re my one-night stand, yeah?”

 

How the hell is this guy so calm? Any other guy would be running away as quickly as possible in this situation. _Killian is not any other guy_ , a tiny voice inside her head whispers. And she knows that voice is right, and she knows that Killian really is her friend, but that doesn’t make her feel any better or any less dramatic right now.

 

“And third of all, it’s not an ideal situation, but is it awful for me to say that I’m kind of excited to have a child?”

 

She looks over at him for the first time since he made her move her arm, and he looks so goddamn hopeful. He looks like he’s trying to hide that hopefulness, but it’s shining through, timid smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

 

“No,” she sighs, sitting up and grabbing onto his hand, “because I’m kind of excited too.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Okay so,” he begins, soft smile still on his lips, “we just take a few days and keep it between us, let it sink in, go to the doctor to double check, and then we talk about how we’re going to tell our families because I’m assuming your parents don’t know that we slept together.”

 

A soft chuckle passes through her lips. “I’m pretty sure my dad thinks that I’m still twelve, so I’m thinking that he’s going to hate you for a little while.”

 

“Dave?” he laughs, like she wasn’t being deadly serious in her last statement. “Hate me? No way.”

 

“Since when do you call my dad Dave?”

 

“We talk. Our offices are across the street from each other.”

 

What is her life? This is insane. This is all insane. Her one-night stand…nope, sorry, wrong term. Her _friend_ who she happened to have really good sex with, which is totally not the point currently, is now the father of her baby. And the father of her baby is also apparently friends with her father. But not the same kind of _friends_ he is with her. Oh no, the world friend is going to have a totally different meaning in her mind now.

 

So no one told you life was going to be this way, indeed.

 

She just throws her head back down on the bed, the mattress bouncing a little at the force of it. “Killian?”

 

“Yes, love?”

 

“Will you go get your laptop and bring it up here so that we can watch a movie or something?”

 

“Of course.”

 

When Killian returns with his laptop, he crawls into bed behind her, tentatively wrapping his arm around her waist and resting his hand on her still-flat stomach. She doesn’t acknowledge the gesture at first, just looks for something to watch, and when she settles on Mamma Mia ironically enough, she shuffles back into him and rests her hand on top of his, the two hands connected and resting on the place where their child is growing.

 

After making a doctor’s appointment and confirming the next week that she is, indeed, nine weeks pregnant, they decide to tell Liam first. It’ll be easier, and she needs easier right now. This morning sickness thing sucks. And it sucks that it’s called morning sickness because that’s a lie. It’s all the damn time. She’s still tired all of the time, the sudden withdrawal of coffee not helping, and she had to quit her job because they wouldn’t give her the week off and she couldn’t handle the smells. So now she’s jobless and pregnant and lives with her parents who don’t know she’s jobless or pregnant. It’s the dream.

 

When they tell Liam, he thinks they’re joking. Literally asks them seventeen separate variations of _are you guys joking_ or _how drunk were you when the two of you came up with this plan_? Not drunk actually, she thinks. But she doesn’t say that. Nope, she does very little of the talking while Killian tries to convince Liam that they’re being deadly serious. He still doesn’t believe them, and every person in this room has stubbornness running through their veins.

 

Finally Killian gets frustrated and storms upstairs, stomping back down with heavy steps a minute later with a little gray photo that doesn’t actually show anything because the baby is too small, but it’s enough to convince Liam that they’re telling the truth, his jaw slacking open, and Emma’s not sure it’s not going to hit the floor.

 

“I didn’t know the two of you were seeing each other.”

 

“We’re not.”

 

“Oh, well I didn’t know the two of you were sleeping with each other.”

 

“We’re not.”

 

The jaw definitely hits the floor then, confusion etched across his face, and when Emma tells him how far along she is, she can see the gears turning in his head. Despite the fact that Killian is a thirty-two year old man and is in charge of his own life, she already knows that Liam is going to scold Killian when she goes home and leaves the brothers alone. She’s always thought Liam acted a bit fatherly to Killian, but it wasn’t until she asked Killian if they would have to tell his parents that he told her neither of them were around – dad left, mom died – and that Liam was more of a father to him than anything, despite only being three years older.

 

Once the confusion clears and Liam understands, he rises from his seat to hug Emma, whispering in her ear that _she’s good for Killian_ and then more loudly telling her that she’s going to be a wonderful mother, much better than Killian will be as a father. The last part is a joke, but Killian’s face contorts, just the tiniest bit, unnoticeable if you’re not looking, but Emma was looking, and she makes a mental note to address that later. It’s probably not her place, but he needs to know that even after only knowing him for a little over two months, she’s sure that he’ll be a wonderful father.

 

That time comes a few days later. She’s jobless now, but since her parents don’t know that, she has to find a way to leave the house in the few hours when her mom is home after school when Emma is usually at work. The beach seems to be her favorite of her hiding places, lounging on a towel in the sand with a book resting on her stomach and sunglasses perched on her nose.

 

“Care for some company?”

 

She looks up to see Killian standing above her, clad in only seersucker swim trunks. They look almost out of place on him, but she knows that the shops around here don’t really sell anything in dark colors. Her bikini is black, and she had to order it online to get it.

 

She doesn’t say anything, just sits up and scoots forward, indicating that he can sit behind her, legs on either side of her body. When he settles behind her, she leans back to rest her head on his lap, arms stretched out on his thighs as she curls her fingers around the hair there.

 

“Are you feeling better than this morning?” Killian asks her, gathering her loose hair together to play with the strands at the nape of her neck. It feels so goddamn good, and she wants him to do that for the rest of the day.

 

“Mhmm,” she sighs, closing her eyes at his touch, “I even ate a regular breakfast.”

 

His touch stops for a moment. “Poptarts?”

 

“No,” she answers, pinching his thigh. He doesn’t even flinch. “I had oatmeal _and_ a bowl of fruit. You and baby should be happy.”

 

“Very,” he tells her, beginning his ministrations on her hair again.

 

They sit like that for awhile, just lounging on the beach like they don’t have a care in the world. She has a lot of cares, but it feels good to just not worry for a little while. She’s about to fall asleep, she can tell. The sun beating down on her skin and Killian’s fingers running through her hair lulling her into a sense of comfort. He doesn’t have to be, but he’s so caring, so good with her. And that’s when she jerks into alertness, suddenly remembering his pained face at Liam’s joke a few days earlier.

 

“Killian?”

 

“Yes, lass?”

 

“You’re going to be a good dad.”

 

His hand stills in her hair again, and she reaches back to grab his hand, having to slightly twist her arm to intertwine their fingers. “I can already tell,” she adds on, adjusting her arm a little more so that this position can be comfortable. “You know I’m a little rough around the edges, but you’re so good with me. And you’ve been so good with this whole…situation, much better than I would expect, and I just thought you should know. I think you’re gonna be great.”

 

He’s silent for a moment, and she wonders if she’s overstepped. They’re _friends_ , and she hates using that word but there’s not really another word to use, so she thinks that it’s okay for her to say things like that. At least she hopes it is.

 

“Thank you, sweetheart.” _Sweetheart_ , that’s a new one. She kind of likes it, but no one’s ever going to know that but her. “You’re going to be great as well.”

 

When she’s ten weeks and six days – it’s really easy to keep track when you know the baby was conceived on June first – she gets tired of lying to her parents and having to go out to random places around town to fake going to work. She’s tried to find another job, but everything that she’s qualified for isn’t hiring. She’ll just have to keep looking because she needs money and, you know, health insurance.  
  
And it’s on this sixth day of the tenth week that after emptying herself into the toilet for what felt like hours, she decides she doesn’t want to go anywhere today. It’s a Saturday so both of her parents are home, and she knows that Killian isn’t working today. It’s probably their best opportunity, so Emma texts him and asks him to come over for an early lunch.

 

She’s helping her mom make some salad to go along with the chicken David is grilling outside when Killian knocks on the front door. Emma tells her mom that she’ll get it, putting down the knife she was using to chop up cucumbers.

 

“Hi,” she greets when she opens the door. He’s wearing a light blue button-down tucked into a pair of dark wash jeans. Meanwhile she’s in yoga pants and a tank top, not even having bothered to brush her hair or put on a bra. “You look nice.”

 

“Thanks, love,” he accepts her compliment, scratching behind his ear. He’s nervous. He’s dressed up because he’s nervous. It’s cute, she thinks, but he’s probably also right to be nervous. She is, too, her stomach rolling for a whole other reason than her hormones being all out of whack.

 

“He’s not going to murder you, Killian,” she soothes as she grabs his forearm and guides him into the house. “This isn’t the 1950’s, and I don’t have to ask my father for permission to leave the house once the sun sets.”

 

A light chuckle leaves his lips, a little breath of air following it. “I still managed to get their daughter pregnant after knowing her for less than twelve hours.”

 

“Hey,” Emma turns to him, stopping him in the foyer out of the view of the kitchen, “my parents are some of the most understanding people I know. I abandoned them for eight years and just showed up one day, and they accepted me with open arms.”

 

“You’re their daughter, and they love you.”

 

“And you, mister, are the father of their grandchild, so they’re going to love you, too.”

 

The giant elephant in the room lets out a loud roar at that, the fact that the two of them don’t even love each other glaringly obvious in light of her words. They’re _friends,_ and while Killian causes butterflies to flutter in her stomach, and has been causing them since she met him, she’s got other things to focus on right now. She doesn’t need to focus on her relationship or lack thereof with the father of her baby. This is weird. This is all so weird.

 

“Emma, who was at the door?” her mother yells from the kitchen, and when she looks at Killian, he just nods his head and smiles.

 

“Ready?”

 

“Ready.”

 

Emma walks into the kitchen first, Killian’s hand lightly placed on her lower back like it’s not even there, just a hairsbreadth of a touch, but it is there. Mary Margaret’s surprised to see him, eyes going wide before she rearranges her face to look normal, asking him if he’d like to butter the bread to put in the oven. That’s what he’s doing when David comes inside, plate of grilled chicken breasts in his hand. He doesn’t even bat an eyelash at Killian being in the kitchen, just smiles and pats him on the back. Emma hopes he still feels that way in about an hour

 

The four of them sit down to eat lunch, and it’s normal, all things considered, conversation flowing among them. When there’s a lull in the conversation, Killian reaches over to squeeze Emma’s knee, their signal that it may be time. They planned out a way to do this, things to say and the order in which to say them. It’s just…Emma’s never been very good at following a plan.

 

“I’m pregnant.”

 

Forks and knives stop clanging against the glass of the plates, and when she looks up from where she was staring at Killian’s hand on her knee, it’s to one pair of green eyes and one pair of blue eyes staring at her. There’s probably also another pair of blue eyes staring at her on her right, but she’s not going to look over there right now.

 

“You’re pregnant,” David repeats, like he’s testing out the words. Like he’s never heard the English language before. Almost a mirror of the reaction Killian had.

 

Her mother doesn’t say anything, but Emma can see her lips quivering. And it’s not because she’s about to cry. It’s because she’s trying to hold in a smile, and bless Mary Margaret for being the most optimistic person in the world.

 

“Yes,” Emma confirms, placing her hand over Killian’s under the table, “I’m eleven weeks pregnant, and in case you need me to spell it out for you, Killian is the dad.”

 

Mary Margaret finally lets her lips form a smile, while her dad’s mouth hangs open, and much like Liam, she thinks his jaw is going to hit the floor. Apparently one parent did need it spelled out for them.

 

After they’ve had a minute to think about it, she can see the gears turning in their head, the math being calculated and backdated.

 

“So are you two together?” Mary Margaret asks while David is still thinking things through. And this was the exact conversation Emma didn’t want to have but knew was coming.

 

“We’re not,” Killian answers for her, and why did those words cut her when he spoke? “And I’m sure you’re doing the math in your heads and I know this was the part Emma was nervous about, but Emma and I were _together_ on the night I first moved here. And while we’re not together now, we’re friends. We’ve been friends this entire time, and after getting used to the fact that we’re having a child together, we’re both excited. So I guess we were hoping that the two of you could be excited as well.”

 

“Of course we’re excited!” Mary Margaret squeals, actually clapping her hands together in excitement before getting out of her seat to squeeze Emma in a hug so tight she can’t breathe. “I’m going to be a grandmother!”

 

“Mom,” Emma gasps, trying to get away, “I can’t breathe.”

 

“Oh!” her mother exclaims, pulling back and placing her hands on the sides of Emma’s face, cradling her cheeks and looking at her with something that looks like awe in her matching green eyes. “I just can’t believe _my_ baby is having a baby.”

 

“Are you going to be like this the entire time?”

 

“Oh, even worse, sweetheart. I’ve waited my entire life for this.”

 

A laugh that sounds more like a sigh passes through Emma’s lips, and that’s when she remembers that her father and Killian are still in the room. David is just sitting in his chair staring at his plate, and Killian is furiously scratching behind his ear looking at her for some kind of help. She squeezes his shoulder for reassurance.

 

“Dad?” Emma prods, making her way to squat next David’s chair, placing her hands on his forearm. “Are you okay?”

 

He doesn’t say anything at first, but he does eventually look over at her, tears shining in his eyes and she’s not sure if these tears are good or bad. “Are you happy, Emma?”

 

It throws her. Very rarely has anyone asked her if she was happy, and she doesn’t quite know what to say, even if she is happy. Her hormones are bouncing around the inside of her like a pinball machine gone haywire, but she still knows that she is happy, despite all of the other conflicting emotions bouncing around.

 

“Yeah,” Emma tells him, reaching up to wipe the tear that’s fallen from his eye, “I’m happy…are you?”

 

A chuckle passes David’s lips before he grabs Emma’s hand, clasping it tightly. “I’m very happy, and I’m excited that you two are having a baby and that I’m going to be a granddad. It’s just a lot to take in.”

 

“You’re telling me,” Emma jests, rolling her eyes, “but I think we’ll all be able to handle it…Oh, also, I need to find a new job. I can never smell sea food again.”

 

Later that day, Emma, Killian, and Emma’s parents are sitting in the living room with the television on in the background. Mary Margaret has baby fever, apparently, and she’s gotten out every photo album the Nolans own, telling Killian the story behind each and every photo. It’s embarrassing, but it’s sweet. And Killian is taking it all in stride, looking over at her with a smile on his face and laughter in his eyes every time there’s a particularly unflattering or funny picture of her.

 

“You were very cute in middle school, love,” he teases, looking at a picture of her with braces and frizzy hair dressed in one of those tight striped Abercrombie t-shirts with light-wash flare jeans. How anyone ever thought that was a good look is beyond her.

 

“Hey now,” she chastises, poking him in the side as he laughs, “your child could look like that, so I wouldn’t make fun of me too much.”

 

His laughter dies down as he contemplates her with a serious stare, like he’s trying to decide if he should make his next move or not. He must decide to go for it because he’s tugging her to his side and placing a lingering kiss on her temple, shocks running through her entire body. “I hope the little lad or lady looks like you, middle school years and all.”

 

It’s one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to her, and that might say more about who Emma has surrounded herself with in the past than anything else, but a blush still rises on her cheeks and butterflies still take flight in her stomach. Of all the people in the world who could have ended up being her accidental baby daddy, she’s glad that it’s Killian Jones.

 

The next week, her dad tells her there’s a job opening as a secretary at the police station, and it may very well be the last job she wants – besides serving sea food – but it pays okay, there’s health insurance, she works with her dad, and she works across the street from Killian. So all in all, it’s not a bad option. She’s always enjoyed talking about her dad’s work with him, and she’s not going to be a secretary forever.

 

This week also means that she’s twelve weeks along, and she swears her stomach has a slight bump. It could also depend on how much she’s eaten or what time of the day it is. But on Wednesday morning when she knows Killian is in the office, she waits outside for him before work carrying a cup of coffee and a hot chocolate despite the September heat.

 

“Well to what do I owe the pleasure, love?” he asks, strolling up to the office in a pair of navy pants and light blue checkered button-down. He looks attractive, and it’s not just her hormones telling her that. She’s attracted to her baby daddy, and while that may seem like the normal course of events, it’s not in this case.

 

“I wanted to show you something,” Emma answers, handing him his coffee. He mumbles a thanks and then raises his eyebrow, nodding at her cup. “It’s hot chocolate thank you very much.” He’s been reading baby books since they found out, and he’s always watching to make sure her caffeine consumption is minimal. Normally she would find it patronizing, but she specifically asked him to keep track after she found herself forgetting that she had to be careful about it.

 

“Is the coffee what you wanted to show me?’ He looks happy this morning, blue eyes brightened against the colors of his outfit.

 

“No,” she answers, distracted by him, and maybe a little bit of it is the hormones. “I like this outfit on you. You should wear it more often.”

 

She honestly can’t believe she said it, but his cheeks flush just the slightest bit red under his tan and his stubble so she doesn’t feel too awkward about it. She does feel the slightest bit awkward when she goes to adjust the collar of his shirt. She’s pretty sure when they say your body isn’t your own when you’re pregnant, they don’t mean it this way.

 

“Thank you, love,” he answers bashfully, looking down at her and tucking a piece of hair behind her ear when she’s fixing his shirt. When she looks up, their faces are so close that if she were to stand on her toes, she could kiss him. And if she remembers correctly, he’s very good at that.

 

It’s that thought that reminds her what she wanted to show him, what that kissing led to the last time. “Oh,” she exclaims, clapping her hands against his chest, “I think you can see my belly a little bit!”

 

He looks so excited, blue eyes going wide as his eyebrows go up, bright smile on his face. “That’s fantastic, sweetheart.”

 

“Do you want to see?”

 

“Out here?”

 

And that’s the flaw in her plan she didn’t exactly think through. She can’t exactly lift her shirt up in the middle of the business district at eight thirty in the morning.

 

“Maybe in your office?”

 

He just nods his head, opening up the building door for her and walking in behind her, hand on the small of her back guiding her to his office. It’s only really a half wall, somewhere in between a cubicle and an actual office, but it’ll work well enough for this purpose.

 

Once they’re in the office…office-adjacent, she lifts her shirt up to expose her bare stomach, looking up at him with expectant eyes.

 

“You look exactly the same.”

 

It’s not what she was expecting, and she won’t lie, she’s kind of disappointed in his reaction. She feels tears start to prickle in her eyes, and she’s not going to cry because Killian can’t see the baby bump she’s not even sure she can see when she looks. She looks up to try to blink the tears away, not wanting to seem like some kind of crazy, unstable woman.

 

“Oh don’t cry, sweetheart,” he pleads, moving to pull her to him, wrapping his arms around her as she buries her head in his chest. She’s not crying, she swears. “I’m sure that the baby bump is there. You’re just so slight, and I don’t see you every day so I’m not going to notice day-to-day changes. But if you see it and if you’re excited about it, I know it’s the most adorable little baby bump I’ve ever seen.”

 

So Killian can’t see the baby bump that week, but when he picks her up for her ultrasound exactly eight days later, he can. She’s not ready when he pulls up to the house, so he comes inside, making his way to her room only for him to find her standing in front of her mirror in just her jeans and her bra.

 

He can also see that her boobs are significantly bigger than they normally are, and she laughs when she can tell that Killian is doing his best to look at both her eyes and her stomach while avoiding what’s in between. She has to tell him it’s okay. They’ve got the weirdest relationship in the world, and him trying not to stare at her breasts is probably the least of her concerns, especially when he walks over to her and places his hand on her stomach, covering basically her entire front. His skin is warm contrasted to the cool of hers, but nothing compares to the heat of his lips when they touch her cheek, his teeth showing in a smile when he pulls back.

 

Everything is fine with the baby at the appointment, and everything is fine as the weeks progress.

 

Emma continues working during the day, and she’s never been so giddy as she is when she realizes that her morning sickness has subsided. She still hates most of the food she used to love, but she’ll take that any day as long as she can keep the food she does eat down. She and Killian spend most of their nights together, most of them discussing plans for the baby but some of them just spending time to get to know each other a little better.

 

If she falls asleep at Liam’s house, Killian doesn’t sleep on the couch in his room anymore, instead crawling into bed with her. And they’re crossing so many lines of whatever it is that they are that she’s not really sure what’s up and what’s down when it comes to the two of them.

 

“So I found a house,” Killian admits on a Saturday in October, taking a sip of his second cup of coffee as he shuffles through news articles on his phone. As much as Emma isn’t ready for her baby quite yet, she really wants to be able to drink massive quantities of caffeine again.

 

They’ve talked about this more times than Emma would care to count. It stresses her to no end, not knowing what they’re going to do with the whole living situation. Killian made it clear that he would be getting his own place, not wanting to weigh Liam down with the responsibility of his brother and a newborn. Liam’s a single man who has his own life, and it’s not fair to him, no matter his protests. Emma, however, is not getting her own place, her parents insisting that it’s more sensible for her to stay at home with them.

 

So they’ve got places to live but no clear realization of how they’re going to handle the baby and its living situation. Neither of them have any experience with newborns, so Mary Margaret suggested that Killian stay at the Nolan household for at least the first few months because “it takes a village” after all. Emma’s entire life is up in the air, but this is a new normal she’s learning to adjust to.

 

“Yeah?” Emma asks from her position on the couch, stretched out so much that Killian is sitting on the floor in front of her, arm stretched back to rest on her thigh.

 

“Mhmm,” he mumbles, taking another sip of his coffee. “Would you like to go look at it with me today?”

 

“That sounds nice.”

 

The house ends up being in her parent’s neighborhood, just a block away, and she’s sure that’s why this is the first house Killian’s asked her to come look at with him. It actually reminds her of her house, same white siding with oversized windows and an open floor plan that just screams _beach house_ at you.

 

There’s three bedrooms, and when Killian tells her _it’s one for you, one for me, and one for the bab_ y, she feels tears pooling in her eyes because the amount of thought he’s put in his house search is more than she would have expected. He’s more than she’s expected.

 

What’s also more than she expected is the first time she feels the baby move. She’s at work twiddling her thumbs because it’s not like there’s a lot of traffic coming through the Seaside police department, and she feels a little flutter in her stomach. Well, flutter is the wrong word. It feels more like a fish is flopping around in there.

The fish stays flopping until the weeks progress and the fish starts to feel more like a kick or a punch than anything else. A welcome punch, but a punch all the same.

 

They find out they’re having a girl the week of her twenty-seventh birthday, and she’s not saying that Killian cries in the exam room, but he definitely does. She’s learned a lot about him over the months they’ve known each other, but the most surprising thing is that he’s a big sap.

 

And the man is _gone_ for their little girl.

 

His _little love_ , as he says.

 

By the time the Christmas season rolls around and she’s almost seven months pregnant, she is _ready_ to have her little girl. Terrified because she’s learned far too much about what actually happens when you give birth and then what happens after (the movies totally lie to you), but also ready to meet her child. Plus, her feet have gotten to that swollen state where she can’t wear her favorite boots, but at least she’s heavily pregnant in the winter and not the summer because she wouldn’t survive having to wear anything other than leggings and stretchy sweaters.

 

In the years that she was away, living some kind of false life that was no life at all in Boston, she hated the holiday season. She hated the constant music and the decorations and people asking if she was going home to be with her family. She didn’t even have a Christmas tree. Neal never wanted one, and for some reason she just let things like that slide, always following what he wanted instead of doing things for herself.

 

This year, though, she’s sitting on the kitchen counter, Killian having helped her up there, while he and her mom make dinner, Liam and her dad in the living room hanging wreaths on the windows. Mary Margaret has taken this whole having her daughter home for Christmas thing to a new level compared to last year. She knows it’s because she’s pregnant and her mother is somehow also doing the whole “nesting” thing. Emma wakes up almost every day to her mom having bought something else for the baby. Sometimes she’ll find Mary Margaret sitting on her bed in the morning just running her hand across Emma’s forehead. It’s sweet, but it’s also extremely creepy. She once did it when Killian was staying over, and he refuses to sleep in her room without locking the door from now on.

 

“Do you want the gravy on your potatoes or not, love?”

 

“I can fix my own plate, Killian.” Sometimes he coddles her, which she has definitely taken advantage of a few times, but sometimes it’s just ridiculous and makes her want to slap him upside the head. She’s not helpless. She’s just pregnant.

 

He doesn’t say anything, just walks over to her and kisses her cheek, hand resting against her stomach. “I’m only asking because I was going to go ahead a pour it in the serving bowl and didn’t know if you were amenable to gravy or not today.”

 

“Oh,” she mumbles. “Then I guess gravy.”

 

“Good to know.”

 

The rest of the night the now family of five (almost six) sits around the television watching Christmas movies, the glow of the Christmas tree lights enveloping the room. Mary Margaret prefers the Hallmark movies, but there’s nothing like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation to get Emma in the Christmas spirit. Killian laughs and makes comments in all the right places, enthusiasm on his face the entire time, and that’s when she realizes he’s never seen the movie before. It’s tradition in her house. They have the moose mugs and everything, so it feels kind of like a right of passage for Killian to join the family, so to speak.

 

That night they’re in bed, Emma trying to get comfortable, when Killian leans over and starts kissing her belly through the flannel of her pajama top. It’s something he’s done before, but tonight seems different.

 

“Can you believe that next Christmas you’ll be here with us, little love?”

 

The baby always moves when he talks to her stomach like that, almost a daily thing now with the stories he regales Emma and baby with. She knows her dad’s voice, and it’s Killian’s way of bonding with her.

 

Emma just reaches down to run her hands through the hair at Killian’s forehead, causing him to look up at her. “Merry Christmas, Killian.”

 

The new year passes, January fading to February, and by the time mid-February rolls around, she’s ready to smack every single person who passes her on the street and tells her _she looks like she’s ready to pop_. She is about to pop, just not in the way everyone expects.

 

Time is passing at a glacial pace, especially since she’s on maternity leave from work, and when she’s one week past her due date she thinks that she’s never been so miserable in her entire life. She goes for a walk twice a day, eats spicy food, anything to try to induce labor. At one point she asks Killian if he’d be willing to have sex with her because she is so desperate to just have the baby that she’d do anything. He just laughs at her, leaning down to kiss the side of her head, but she knows she’s not imagining it when he pulls back and there’s red painting his cheeks.

 

Exactly thirteen days after her due date at a little before three in the morning, she feels her first contraction, and to put it simply, it sucks. It sucks, and every person who told her this was a magical experience is a liar.

 

“Killian,” she yells, rolling herself off the bed to make her way to his room down the hall. They’d been staying at his house the past few days because she couldn’t sleep anywhere other than that bed by herself. If Killian even tried to slip into bed next to her, his body heat alone would be too hot for her to be comfortable. “Killian!”

 

By the time she makes it to the hallway, he’s stumbling out of his room, pulling on a pair of jeans over his boxers. “Is it time, sweetheart?”

 

“It’s time.”

 

Emma Nolan has known Killian Jones for nine months thirteen days and a few hours. Emma Nolan also has a squirming, red-faced newborn baby girl with Killian Jones named Finley Hope Jones who she loves more than everyone told her she would. It’s not a conventional path, how she got here, but she wouldn’t change it for anything.

 

The first few months are rough, to put it simply. Finley doesn’t sleep well, and when she does sleep, it’s when Emma wants her to be awake. Her mom was right in having them stay at her parents’ house because as great as Killian is with the baby, there are times when all Emma wants is her mom to be there with her. Her body doesn’t feel like her own sometimes, just like it’s a feeding machine for Finley, and it doesn’t matter how old she gets, sometimes a girl just needs her mom to be there with her.

 

Plus, it does _things_ to her to see Killian holding their daughter, and sometimes she just needs a break from that.

 

When three months have passed her maternity leave runs out, and she finally understands what everyone is talking about. You so desperately want to get out of the house while also being heartbroken over leaving your baby. She hasn’t been away from Finley for more than a few hours when Killian takes her out to go get something to eat just so that she can have a conversation that’s about something other than a baby’s eating habits.

 

“I just don’t want to leave her,” Emma moans, trying on a pair of her pre-pregnancy jeans to see if she can get them zipped up as Killian walks Finley back and forth, humming something under his breath. “How did you do it?”

 

“I didn’t really have a choice, love,” Killian tells her, moving to sit on the bed so that he can look at her while they have this conversation. “And I definitely didn’t like it. I pretty much stared at my phone for updates from you all day long for two weeks straight. I don’t know how I didn’t get bloody fired.”

 

She doesn’t respond to him, remembering the time when he would text or call her at every opportunity he could, finding ways to come home early every day even if it meant pushing back a potential sale. God forbid he ever had to go out of town to meet a client because that always ended in him clinging to Finley the night before, giving up his own sleep to just run his fingers over her peach fuzz while he whispered how _daddy loves her_ until she fell asleep. Not that Emma could blame him or judge. The only reason she wasn’t clinging to Finley right now was because Killian was holding her while she got ready for tomorrow.

 

She shimmies the jeans up past her hips, managing to get them over her ass and buttoned without too much work. They don’t fit her like they used to, which is disheartening, but she can get them zipped at least.

 

“You’re a hot mama in those jeans, sweetheart,” Killian praises, and when she turns from the mirror to look at him she finds him perusing her, eyes raking over the fit of the jeans and the lack of a top besides her bra. It both makes her blush from flattery and embarrassment over not looking like she used to. Logically she knows it’s not something to be ashamed of, but sometimes logic doesn’t win.

 

Right now, though, she’s mostly concerned with hiding the red on her cheeks from Killian’s compliment and subsequently checking her out. She’s not going to lie and say that she doesn’t have feelings for Killian. She most definitely does. When she was pregnant, she thought she might jump his bones on a daily basis. Now that she’s blocked out the whole having a human being come out of her body thing (not really, that’s never going to go away, but it was worth it), she thinks that not having someone to relieve the _tension_ and _frustration_ she felt all throughout her second trimester and a little bit into her third was the most difficult part of pregnancy.

 

But it’s not just that she’s attracted to him for his looks. She’s attracted to him for who he is as a person. She’s always known that they were compatible, similar enough to have things in common while being different enough to have things to talk about. They get along like she’s never gotten along with anyone, so the natural course of action would be to date right?

 

Seems simple enough when you love someone – and she does love him – but then you add in the not so simple fact that they have a child together. Anything they do relationship wise affects their daughter, and nothing has held Emma back more than that. It’s not just the two of them. It’s the three of them. Finley will already grow up with her parents apart. The last thing she needs is for her parents to have a stilted relationship because her mom went and told her dad that she loved him when he didn’t feel the same way.

 

And there’s always the possibility that Killian could feel the same way – he most likely does not – but if love has taught her anything in the past, just because you love someone doesn’t mean it’s going to work out.

 

Besides, why would Killian want to be saddled with her when he could have any other woman in the world?

 

“Have you ever thought about dating again?” she asks him, the words just falling from her lips like someone else has taken over her body. She’s scared to know the answer, but he doesn’t deserve to have to put his life on hold just because of she and Finley. He hasn’t dated anyone since they met, and he’s an attractive guy. There’s no reason for him not to. “I mean, there’s nothing holding you back. Yeah, you’ve got a newborn, but it’s not like you have saggy boobs and a messed up stomach because of it. And you don’t get the whole stigma of having a kid that women get. You’re a guy. People will think it’s cute that you have a baby. It’ll honestly make you more attractive. So have you thought about it? I don’t want you not to because of us. I want you to be happy.”

 

He studies her for a moment, jaw ticking as he debates something in his mind. “Emma, darling,” he begins, not moving from his spot on the bed, Finley asleep in his arms, “I’m going to share something with you, and I need you to promise that you’re not going to freak out, okay?”

 

She can’t promise that. She’s already freaking out. Is he already dating someone else? Oh god.

 

“Okay,” she says anyways, like a liar.

 

“I am happy. Happier than I’ve ever been. Finley is the love of my life. I didn’t know that I could feel that way about someone who can’t even speak to me, but I do. I love her with my entire being. But you know what else?”

 

He’s staring at her so intensely that the heat of his gaze makes her worry that it might make Finley too hot in his arms. It’s irrational, but she can’t help it.

 

“What?”

 

“I also love her mother. And I don’t love her mother simply because she carried my child and nurtures my, _our_ , child. Though, I think a new type of love comes from those things. But I love her…I love _you_ , Emma, for who you are outside of being a mother. I love you for being Emma, and I think I’ve loved you since the night when you first experienced morning sickness, though we didn’t know what it was at the time. It was disgusting and painful and you yelled at me like you never had before. But despite all that, all I could think of was how wonderful you are. How brave and how strong and how beautiful. All I could think was that I didn’t mind taking care of you because I loved you. And I love you still.”

 

He’s bearing his heart to her, every thought she’s ever wanted to hear, but the words she says in response are not nearly as graceful.

 

“Even with the saggy boobs?”

 

“Especially with the saggy boobs.”

 

“Oh Killian,” Emma cries out, tears falling down her cheeks because even if she hadn’t just heard a declaration of love from him, her hormones still make her cry at even the slightest emotional moment. “I love you, too. Maybe not since the same time as you, and definitely not just because you’re Finley’s dad. But I love you all the same.”

 

She can’t stop her crying, the tears wetting her cheeks, and when Killian gets up she thinks he’s going to comfort her, wipe away her tears with the pad of his thumb like he always does. He doesn’t, though. He just walks right out her bedroom door with Finley, and Emma’s never been so confused in her life. Didn’t he just say that he loved her? Did he mean just in a friendly way? How could she have screwed up this whole thing in a matter of minutes when she’s worked for almost a year to avoid this very thing?

 

But then before she knows it, Killian’s walking back into the room, no Finley in his arms, and he’s walking toward her with a purpose she’s only seen in him one time before. Then he’s kissing her, lips warm and pressed hard against her own as his hands cup her cheeks, holding her lips to his like he never wants them to be separated. It takes her a moment to kiss him back, still recovering from her internal freak out a moment before, but then her lips start moving against his, softness she’s been craving. It’s been one year, seventeen days, and one baby since they last did this, and that’s one year, seventeen days, and one baby too long.

 

At some point she ends up with her back pressed against the mattress, Killian on top of her supporting his weight by his forearms, and as soon as she feels his erection pressing against her thigh, she has to pull back, even if she’d rather do anything else.

 

“What’s wrong, love?” Killian asks, brows furrowed and lips pursed as he looks down at her, his hips no longer touching hers.

 

“Um, so as much as I want to do _this_ ,” she motions between the two of them before pointing down to his prominent desire, “and as much as I love Finley, and you know, you…” He smiles at that, giving her cheek a quick peck before looking her in the eye again. “…Finley is the welcome result of a broken condom, and while that’s not likely to happen again, I’d like to be on birth control as well. And we probably have some things to talk about, you know?”

 

They do have things to talk about, and that’s what the next few hours, crying baby interrupting every hour like clockwork, are spent doing, talking out the logistics of the potential of them being together. It’s not romantic, but sometimes – a lot of the time – relationships aren’t. And that’s what they’re trying to be, a couple in a relationship.

 

She hasn’t had fears of Killian leaving if he gets upset with her in months, but that still lingers at the back of her mind, no matter how many times he reassures her otherwise.

 

But as the days and the weeks go by, that thought lingers a little less. She likes this, being together with him. She likes that he’ll take any opportunity to kiss her, sometimes grabbing her by the waist and pulling her into another room to plunder her mouth while her giggles turn into moans just because he can. She likes that they take their lunch break at the same time every day so that they can have an hour together with absolutely no other interruptions. She likes that on the days where his hours are shorter, he picks up Finley from daycare and brings her to work so that she can hold her while she answers phones. She likes that on weekends once the weather has cooled to make it safe for Finley, they go to the beach together, their baby covered with that special sunscreen and a hat and a frilly swimsuit that Emma may or may not have bought more than one of. She likes that somehow her room at his house somehow becomes their room at their house without either of them ever really noticing.

 

She doesn’t like that her baby is growing up without her ever really noticing, even if she watches the girl like a hawk. No, like a mother.

 

“Killian, she’s getting so big,” she complains one night when Finley is asleep, the child finally sleeping through the night, while she and Killian catch up on all of the TV they’ve been missing, “and I know you’re probably tired of me crying all the time, but I can’t help it. Our baby is basically an adult.”

 

“She’s not yet seven months, darling,” he comforts her, pulling her into his side and kissing the crown of her head. “But I understand. She’s growing rather quickly. Her hair has a slight curl to it now. It makes me think she might take after Liam.”

 

Emma just rolls her eyes. Liam has been egging Killian on since Finley was born that she takes after him more than she takes after Killian. It’s a lie, and everyone but Killian seems to realize it. That little girl looks exactly like Killian in everything but the lightness of her hair.

 

“Do you…do you ever, eh –” Killian begins, stopping before he ever really starts.

 

“Do I what?”

 

“Do you ever think about having another?”

 

She has to turn her head to look up at him, but he’s looking up at the ceiling, avoiding her gaze in the most obvious way.

 

“I do.”

 

That gets him to look down at her, blue eyes so intense that she doesn’t understand how she withstands the intensity of his gaze sometimes.

 

“Not right now, obviously. I want some more time with just her, you know? And also with you. We’ve technically only been together for four months, so I think I might need to wait for us to have another baby. But I do so enjoy practicing with you.”

 

Killian finally smiles at that, eyes bright as his laugh lines appear, laugh lines she loves so very much.

 

“In fact,” Emma grins, moving from her spot against his side to straddle his lap, kissing him slowly as her hands play with the hair at the nape of his neck, “I think now would be a really good time to do some of that practicing.”

 

“Bloody brilliant idea that is,” Killian tells her, before scooping her up and throwing her over his shoulder on his way to their room, the loveable, dramatic ass.

 

Emma and Killian have done in everything in their life together out of the conventional order. Sleep together, become friends, have a baby, move in together, and fall in love somewhere along the way. It’s messy in every way possible, but it works for them, two people burned by love who somehow found each other in a small coastal town far away from where they’d lived most of their adult lives.

 

But now they’ve got their families and each other and Finley. Emma’s taking classes to become a deputy with the police station, her dad having put in a good word for her even when she told him not to, and Killian’s continuing working as a boat salesman. He finds that he likes it more when he’s able to buy a boat of his own that he takes them all out on any chance that they get.

 

Finley has a life vest fit for an almost two year old that Killian may or may not have gotten personalized to say _first mate_ across her chest. Emma took offence that she wasn’t his first mate when she first saw it, but he told her that she had a gemstone on her left hand’s ring finger that indicated that she is a different kind of _mate_ entirely. He’s a ridiculous man who she loves with everything she has, and she’s okay with how things in her life have changed. It’s been for the better.

 

Their boating adventures become Emma’s favorite family pastime, even more than running around with Finley in the backyard just for Killian to scoop them both up and cause continuous giggles from both of his girls that never seem to fade away from the walls of their home. But out here on the ocean, watching Killian in his element while Finley tells her about all of the animals that live in the sea and the noises that they make, effectively making a screech that’s supposed to be a whale, this is something else entirely. It’s like finally coming home after all of those years of being away.

 

It helps that she doesn’t get seasick anymore.

 

Well, she is today. But that’s a story for another time.


End file.
